“I had no idea that being your authentic self could make me as rich as I’ve become. If I had, I’d have done it a lot earlier.”~Oprah Winfrey

It can be easy to love other people but it’s not always easy to love your authentic self, am I right?

We can be kind and loving towards others but not that kind and loving towards ourselves and that is exactly why I decided to write this post and to share with you some ideas on how to start accepting who you are and how to start to love all of you, the good and the bad.

1. Stop Undervaluing Your Authentic Self

You are not perfect, nobody is and that is perfectly fine, so stop being so harsh on yourself. Start paying close attention to your own thoughts and see whether they serve you or not. Are these thoughts good thoughts, are they kind and loving, are they empowering? If not, let them go and shift your focus from the things you think are wrong with you towards the things that are okay, towards those things that are unique and beautiful. If you don’t know what those things are, go ask a friend and you will soon find out what an incredible being they think you are.

If you continue to look down at yourself, expect others to do the same, because just like William Hazlitt said, “He who undervalues himself is justly undervalued by others.”

2. Cut Yourself Some Slack

Don’t be afraid to express yourself, don’t be afraid to speak your mind and don’t be afraid to be who you are and act the way you feel like. The world is full of people who act the way others want them to and not the way they want to … you don’t have to live your life that way.

I can tell you from my own experience the moment you accept yourself completely and the moment you start acting the way you feel like acting, more and more people will be drawn to you and not only you will realize there is so much about you to love, but you will also start projecting this love on to others.

3. Build the Friendship You Have with Yourself

The most important relationship you will ever have is the one with yourself and if you don’t work on building and improving this relationship, chances are you will not be too happy. Be kind and loving towards yourself and make an effort to start seeing yourself as your own best friend because the moment you do, you will realize there is no friendship more valuable than the friendship you have with you own self.

What are the things you love to do and what keeps you away from actually doing them? What are the excuses you are using not to do these things? Can you let go of these excuses and start spoiling yourself from time to time? I think you can and I also think you should allow yourself to be happy.

“Friendship with one’s self is all-important because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

4. Invest in Yourself

Take time to learn and to grow, take the time to nurture your dreams and goals, take action and commit to making them happen. By doing so, you will have little or no time at all to waste on stuff that bothers you, and all your focus, energy and attention will be directed towards the improvement of self. If you only do this one step, I promise you, you will be living a very happy and fulfilling life and many of the people around you will admire you and also feel inspired by your actions and behavior.

“There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.” – Aldous Huxley

5. Give Yourself the Gift of Forgiveness

You can’t ignore the role forgiveness plays in all of this. Whether we are talking about others or yourself, it is crucial to understand the power of forgiveness and why you need to exercise it.

Who are the people you need to forgive and for what? Why is it that you feel you can’t forgive them? Do you realize that by not forgiving them you are in fact not allowing yourself to fully experience life?

A good way would be to regard the people you need to forgive as teachers. This way it will become easier for you to forgive, find the strength to move on and enjoy life. This also applies in situations when you need to forgive yourself for something you have done in the past because a past mistake has most certainly taught you something valuable, right?

“Inner peace can be reached only when we practice forgiveness. Forgiveness is letting go of the past, and is, therefore, the means of correcting our misperceptions.” – Gerald Jampolsky

~love, Luminita 💫

** What about you? Are you good to yourself? On a scale of 1 to 10, how good?

I love this article… as many others that I read from you. What I love most in this is that you give a way to forgive by saying ‘regard them as teachers.’ I like this so much because of how simple it is to exercise, as everyone knows forgiving is so difficult and daunting and we don’t really know HOW to go about it even if we want to do so (like myself!). If you focus on the person as a teacher, imagine them as a teacher, think that you are about to forgive them as though you are visualising them as a teacher, it distracts us from our hurt and pain that we hold on to and inadvertently opens our minds (and hearts) to the act of forgiving.

Thank you sooo much. You help me with this struggle of forgiving those who have wronged me. I have learnt why I should forgive and lately I have been stuck on how. Something so simple as this part in your article has made a huge difference TO MY WELLBEING.

I may not know you, regardless of that, I love you for who you are and what you do. Keep being you xo

“You are not perfect, nobody is and that is perfectly fine, so stop being so harsh on yourself”

A lot of this article resonated with me. I’m way too hard on myself. I do invest in myself in a lot of ways but I’m my biggest critic and I could be a better friend to myself than I have been for a while. Thank you for this article.

For a long time, I hid my authentic self from everyone – even tried to fool myself. Y’see, I’m an introvert who prefers to stay in and read on a Friday night, and that’s just not okay with most people… At least that was my experience.

But as I stopped apologizing for who I was and instead started owning it, an amazing thing happened: the people who couldn’t appreciate me kinda disappeared. And in their place, people who are supportive and kind came. 🙂 Being true to yourself is so important…Thank you for the wonderful tips and reminder. Peace!

I am a 37 and I am a single parent of six five girls and one boy. I was in a realationship with their dad for thirteen years. We now live seperate, however when he come around i am overwhelmed with feelings for him still. However the thought of going back in a realationship is not repairable Trust has been broken.Reading this articles means a lot to me.

I want to share with you a chinese proverb on the subject of revenge because revenge and forgiveness (which is mentioned in this article) can be said to be the two sides of the same coin.

“Before you start on the road to revenge, dig two graves – one for your enemy and one for yourself.”

Only YOU can make the correct decision for yourself, but if your ex-partner expresses GENUINE remorse for breaking your trust, in addition to hurting your children and your partner, you will be hurting yourself if you PREFER to hold onto your hurt than to take TENTATIVE steps to a reconciliation and to grow and heal as a person.

Being authentic is the ability to be true to oneself. Living an authentic life requires the ability to be true to our own wants, needs and desires and not live our lives by the opinion of others. Being authentic is the ability to make self-honoring choices and stand firmly in who we are in our core. Being true to ourselves gives us the insight and compassion to see others for who they are, not who we expect them to be. It frees us up from the judgment of ourselves and others and it gives others the freedom to be themselves as well.